Germany bobsledders soar after Sochi flop

Four-man win caps strong showing at 2018 Winter Games

Driver Francesco Friedrich, Candy Bauer, Martin Grothkopp and Thorsten Margis of Germany start their third heat during the four-man bobsled competition final at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, Sunday, Feb. 25, 2018. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E) less

Driver Francesco Friedrich, Candy Bauer, Martin Grothkopp and Thorsten Margis of Germany start their third heat during the four-man bobsled competition final at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South ... more

Photo: Wong Maye-E

Photo: Wong Maye-E

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Driver Francesco Friedrich, Candy Bauer, Martin Grothkopp and Thorsten Margis of Germany start their third heat during the four-man bobsled competition final at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, Sunday, Feb. 25, 2018. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E) less

Driver Francesco Friedrich, Candy Bauer, Martin Grothkopp and Thorsten Margis of Germany start their third heat during the four-man bobsled competition final at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South ... more

Photo: Wong Maye-E

Germany bobsledders soar after Sochi flop

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Pyeongchang, South Korea

Shut out in Sochi, the German bobsled program swept every other nation away in Pyeongchang.

Francesco Friedrich drove to the four-man bobsledding gold medal Sunday, capping an absolutely dominant showing by the Germans on the sliding track at the Pyeongchang Olympics.

Friedrich and his team of Candy Bauer, Martin Grothkopp and Thorsten Margis left no doubt, finishing their four runs in 3 minutes, 15.85 seconds to win by more than a half-second. The Korean sled driven by Won Yunjong and the German sled driven by Nico Walther shared the silver, the second sliding medal tie in these games after they finished in 3:16.38.

The Germans came to Pyeongchang set to prove that what happened in Sochi was merely an aberration, and delivered. The Sochi Games were the first in 50 years where Germany didn't win a single medal in bobsledding, and what they did in Pyeongchang more than made up for that series of disappointments from 2014.

"It was so frustrating in Sochi," Friedrich said. "Winning a medal was our big target and making sure we didn't make the same mistakes. We did it."

Codie Bascue and his team of Evan Weinstock, Steve Langton and Sam McGuffie led the U.S. with a ninth-place finish.

Friedrich has a 21-race winless drought in four-man World Cup starts, but when the stakes are highest he seems to find a way. He has five gold medals from two- and four-man races at the world championships, drove to the world four-man title last season, and added this Olympic gold to the one in two-man that he shared with Canada's Justin Kripps.

"Once you get ahead, it's easier to stay ahead," said U.S. pilot Justin Olsen, who finished 20th. "Look at what Friedrich did. He got the lead in the first heat and he kept on going. This is not like the speedskating mass start where you get a lap ahead and get chased down. You get a lap ahead here, you stay a lap ahead."

Friedrich becomes the fifth German pilot to sweep two-man and four-man golds in the same Olympics, joining Andreas Ostler in 1952, Meinhard Nehmer in 1976, Wolfgang Hoppe in 1984 and Andre Lange in 2006.

And push athlete Kevin Kuske, who was in his last race, won his sixth medal in five Olympic appearances. He's now the fourth bobsledder with six Olympic medals, after helping Walther win silver.

"He has four Olympic gold medals and he decided after the disappointment of Sochi that he would do four more years," Walther said. "We wanted to win a medal for him."

Curling: The Swedish women won the gold medal in the final match of a marathon curling festival. They beat South Korea 8-3 in nine ends to leave the "Garlic Girls" with a silver that is the hosts' first Olympic medal in the sport. Sweden took control of the match by stealing a point in back-to-back ends — the fourth and the fifth — even though South Korea had the last-rock advantage known as the hammer. After South Korea mustered just one point in the sixth, Swedish skip Anna Hasselborg delivered a takeout on her final rock of the seventh to score three points and open a 7-2 lead. The South Koreans picked up one point in the eighth, but when they couldn't keep the Swedes from scoring in the ninth, they conceded.

Figure skating: Alina Zagitova and Evgenia Medvedev gave figure skating fans one more show in South Korea. Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir gave them one more on Olympic ice. The Russian teenagers, who dueled so memorably in the women's event during the Pyeongchang Games, and the Canadian ice dance couple that became figure skating's most decorated Olympians highlighted the traditional curtain-closing exhibition gala on Sunday. After years spent grinding toward competition, the gala is an opportunity for skaters to finally let down their hair, have a little fun and do what they enjoy most: entertain. So you had Zagitova, the 15-year-old jumping jack who edged Medvedev for gold, performing to the jazz standard "Afro Blue" by American singer Jazzmeia Horn. And her close friend Medvedev, whose graciousness in settling for silver struck a chord for the Olympic movement, performing to a song from "Battle of Sevastopol," the biographical war film set during the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. "I wanted to project the feelings inside of me when I am anxious," Medvedev explained. "All of us have moments in life when we don't know what to do and in the end we come to a decision and resolve our conflicts, and this reflects the way I feel and express my soul and my inner world." Inner conflict? Anxiety and turmoil? Sounds a lot like competing in the Winter Games. South Korean pairs skaters Yura Min and Alex Gamelin opened the gala with a flashy, colorful hip-hop program to "Lollipop" — and tossed candy into the crowd. There also was a performance by the North Korean pair of Ryom Tae Ok and Kim Ju Sik, who had the crowd clapping along.